(Sent from my tiny-screen wireless device; excuse brevity or typos) Begin forwarded message:
From: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net> Date: 05 maggio 2014 21:10:56 CEST To: "ip" <ip@listbox.com> Subject: [IP] evel 3 accuses five unnamed US ISPs of abusing their market power in peering Reply-To: dave@farber.net
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Dewayne Hendricks" <dewayne@warpspeed.com> Date: May 5, 2014 2:02 PM Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Level 3 accuses five unnamed US ISPs of abusing their market power in peering To: "Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net" <dewayne-net@warpspeed.com> Cc:
Level 3 accuses five unnamed US ISPs of abusing their market power in peering By Stacey Higginbotham May 5 2014 <http://gigaom.com/2014/05/05/level-3-accuses-five-unnamed-us-isps-of-abusing...>
SUMMARY: Level 3 is accusing 5 U.S. ISPs of using their market power to limit the amount of traffic that can get on their networks, thus degrading the consumer broadband experience in hopes of charging content providers money.
Level 3 Communications, a company that provides bandwidth for a wide variety of customers trying to get content from point A to point B on the internet, just accused five U.S. ISPs and one European ISP of using their market power to interfere with how traffic flows from Level 3 onto the ISPs’ last-mile network. The result is that customers of those ISPs experience degraded quality for services going over Level 3′s network.
This is a so-called peering problem. The topic has been in the news since early this year, when consumers began complaining about the quality of their Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Instant Video streams on networks like Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and Time Warner Cable. The issue is that at the interconnection points where Netflix traffic attempts to enter the last-mile ISP’s network, there isn’t enough capacity. Usually, when that happens, the transit provider or the content provider negotiate to add more capacity by opening up more ports. (I explain the process in this story.)
However, in recent months Level 3, Netflix and Cogent have all gone publicaccusing some ISPs of keeping those ports congested while trying to charge above-market rates for direct interconnection. Netflix has signed such a direct interconnection agreement with both Comcast and Verizon. But it isn’t happy about it and accuses the ISPs of abusing their market power to extract payments from content companies trying to serve the last mile.
In covering this issue, I’ve argued that the FCC needs to get data on these peering agreements and practices before we can prove that there’s a problem. It’s clear there is consumer harm, but what’s unclear is whether ISPs are actively blocking traffic, or hurting specific providers. It’s also unclear if ISPs are charging abusive rates to get direct interconnection agreements.
These peering agreements are deeply held secrets, which means the FCC will have to force providers to disclose the terms of their agreements and what traffic looks like on their networks. By sharing some of its network details, Level 3 is offering us a transparency strip tease, giving us (and the FCC) a glimpse of the data it has without naming names.
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